Bacon in the Morning
by DefenderofHelplessSemicolons
Summary: After movie night, everyone's snowed in at Castle's.


Kate Beckett could sleep anywhere. Head down on a desk, coiled on the break-room couch, even once (famously) on an interrogation table near the end of a very long day. So why she couldn't fall asleep on Castle's couch was a mystery to her.

It was the second Friday of the month, which was movie night; which had turned into a snow night, and then into a Castle-holding-everyone-hostage night. The promise of thick-cut bacon in the morning—not to mention homemade Belgian waffles—had been enough to get Esposito and Ryan to surrender, the traitors. After a bit of a scuffle involving spare blankets and an aborted pillow fight (they really were teenage girls), the two had quickly fallen asleep.

Leaving Beckett blinking up at the ceiling at 4:30 in the morning, grudgingly awake after a loud bout of Esposito snoring.

She checked her phone again, then got up quietly, and carried her purse over to the breakfast nook, where she withdrew a book. It wasn't one of Castles—it was an older favorite, one of Johanna's. She'd been carrying her mother's books around lately.

The dim light from the kitchen was just enough to read by. Beckett propped her cheek on a fist and thumbed to Chapter 5.

Some time later, she heard a door open. Castle tiptoed out into the kitchen in a bathrobe and sweats, holding an empty glass and peering over into the living room. He froze when he saw her in the kitchen.

"I didn't know you were awake," he said in a stage whisper.

"Well, I am. Couldn't sleep," she said. It was too early in the morning to be witty.

"Can I get you anything?"

"Earplugs." She jerked her chin in the direction of Esposito, who chose that moment to emit a particularly loud snort. Castle winced on her behalf.

"If I'd have known, I wouldn't have invited him to stay."

"And Ryan?"

"Does he talk in his sleep?"

"No." Thinking back on the last few hours, she added direly, "Not yet."

"He's on probation, then." Castle stretched out a hand and tipped her book up slightly so he could see the cover. "Ah. Interesting choice." His fingers were warm where they brushed hers.

"My mom's," she said, feeling almost defensive, but he didn't pry, instead moving to fill his glass.

"What are you doing up this early, Castle?"

"Writing. Pre-writing, actually. Had an idea for what I think is going to be a short story," he said, coming around the counter island to lean against the chair next to her.

"I didn't know you did short stories. Is that very different from writing a novel?"

"Very," he said. "It's like speaking a different dialect of the same language, but one with different grammar and a completely different approach. All you share is the vocabulary. It's incredibly challenging."

Beckett was intrigued. "You've never published any short stories, have you?"

"Nope. I've written a few, but I'd never show them to anyone." He pulled a small legal pad out of his robe pocket and placed it on the counter. "I haven't written much yet, mostly just jotting down ideas. I'll develop them more tomorrow."

She studied the lined paper. Phrases, single words, a sentence or two of description, a few arrows and strike-throughs, all in a semi-legible scrawl. "And this is different than the way you'd write a novel?"

"Oh, yes. For a novel I outline before I write. For a short story, I like to keep it looser."

She turned to look at him. "You outline your novels?" She knew the answer—read it in an interview with him a few years ago—but the fangirl in her was enjoying having Rick Castle all to herself at the moment.

"Is that a note of disbelief I hear?"

Beckett assumed a skeptical look. "You just don't seem like the organized type."

"I actually am. Here—come see." He took her arm and guided her toward his office. Once inside, he adjusted the lights and closed the door so as not to disturb the two detectives sleeping outside, then dragged a large box out of the storage closet and set it on the desk. "I keep all of the outlines and drafts of outlines for every book I've ever written. Plus a printed copy of the manuscript I sent to my publisher, plus printed proofs after significant editing changes, plus galleys and ARCs." He selected several sheets from a file folder and handed it to Beckett. "This is how I worked out the plot for _In a Hail of Bullets_. And this—" he pulled out a thick sheaf of paper—"is the original copy I sent to my first editor."

Beckett stared down at the outlines and the manuscript in her hands. _His first book. _She couldn't help but think how much her mother would've enjoyed seeing this. Paging through the outline, she could follow the flow of his thought as he added, changed, reorganized, and discarded characters, plot beats, and paragraphs of description. The tattered manuscript had a sticky note peeking out the side, upon which some enterprising editorial assistant had written, "Steve—must read—little shaky in the beginning, but compelling protag and eye for dialogue—please rescue from slush pile!"

"I didn't have an agent," he said. "I sent it in unsolicited. Tiny advance, and they gouged me on the royalties. But they gave me a chance. That was all I wanted."

She looked over at him, and he met her eyes with quiet pride. "I worked harder on that book than I'd ever worked on anything in my life. Was still in college, at that point. I wrote before class and after class, and during class, sometimes. When one of my profs caught me at it I promised I'd put her in the book. She gave me a B+ on the course, which was more than I deserved, and I gave her a signed copy later." He smiled in memory. "She never missed a signing; always bought two or three copies of my books to give away."

Beckett watched him, standing there in an office that looked built for a man-child who'd never been denied any luxury. But the box on the desk and the stack in the closet spoke of years of unseen labor and self-discipline, something that didn't match with the playboy image he cultivated so carefully.

"Can I read them?" she asked. "The short stories."

Castle squirmed a little. "They're not really publication-ready. Pretty bad, some of them."

"I'd like to see them."

After a long moment, he moved away to dig through his desk drawers for another file folder of printouts and torn legal sheets. "Here," he said, almost reluctantly. She hitched a hip against the desk and bent her head over the thin stack of mismatched papers.

Two of the stories petered out with no satisfactory endings, or ended in mid-paragraph and even midsentence. Another was ruthlessly reworked at least three times. Three more were like sketches, outlines of stories that would never be told. It was fascinating to see how his mind worked, how he sifted through ideas and weighed themes. Maybe Richard Castle wasn't the most talented of writers, objectively speaking, but Beckett had to admit that he clearly worked hard at his craft.

And then there was a story at the bottom of the stack, a longer one, on paper that felt newer than the rest.

"Oh, that, uh..." said Castle.

It wasn't Nikki Heat, not exactly. There were more fight scenes and a tropical setting. But there was a woman, and she had walked through the fire, and used that to defend others. The prose was spare, elegant, not at all like his usual way. At the end the woman said,_ I hate my pain and I love it. Without it I would not be who you need me to be. I wouldn't give this up for anything. Not even if it would bring her back._

_But what if you could bring her back,_ the male character asked. But she didn't answer.

Beckett realized she'd forgotten to breathe. She fixed her eyes straight ahead for a moment, letting the story sink into her bones. Then she turned to Castle. She wasn't the only one who'd been holding her breath.

"Who did you write that for, Castle?" She had to know.

To his credit, Castle didn't hesitate. "You. I wasn't sure whether to give it to you."

"You said they weren't ready for publication. That one seemed finished."

"No," he said. "I wouldn't have published that one."

"Why not?" Suddenly his answer was important.

Castle swallowed. "Because it's different than Nikki Heat. I don't know how. It just is. And I wouldn't do that to you. Or...to your mother."

Beckett set the papers carefully down. "She would have loved it. Mom would have."

"And you?" He cleared his throat, and it was painfully apparent that he needed something from her. She had no doubt that if she asked him to, he would destroy the story, no matter how long it had taken him to write. But that would be an abuse of trust, of something precious he'd given her that he'd likely shared with very few people in the world.

Because of that, and because her mom's birthday was coming up, and because she was tired and wanted to burrow in somewhere warm, she took a step forward and slid her arms around his waist. "I liked it," she said against his shoulder. "It made me think of her."

His arms came around her and they stood together in the half-light. "I'm sorry," he said.

"She'd've been fifty-three."

Castle stroked her hair once. "I know."

After a moment she said, "Castle."

"Yeah?"

She pulled back and regarded him. "You promised me breakfast in the morning."

"And?"

She grinned. "It's morning."

His glance darted toward the door. "But Esposito and—"

Beckett shushed him with a finger to his lips. The effect was electric. "They woke me up with their snoring, you kept me up with your books. I'm gonna need something to get me through today."

Castle smirked under her finger before she withdrew it and dropped a kiss on her forehead. "I have just the thing." He steered her out of the office. "How good are you with a blender...?"

Author's note: I'm much better at short pieces and flash fiction than novels, so I'm writing some of Castle's dialogue from the complete opposite perspective and guessing at his process.  Also: BACON BACON BACON.


End file.
